Blogs

UAVs in wind parks

Posted by Martin Mueller on September 17, 2010 at 1:00pm

Together with the Laboratory for Energy Conversion of the ETH Zürich we have adapted their multi-hole air flow probe to Paparazzi and integrated it into our meteo Funjets. It is used to measure wind vectors/turbulences around wind turbines for a more efficient planning of wind parks. The goal is to reduce the impact that a turbine causes to the ones downstream. Swiss television has an article (in German).



Flying close to a rotating wind turbine at notable wind speeds made us use a fairly "conservative" Paparazzi setup to give as much reliability as possible. The plane is running with thermopiles only, just as for the Arctic campaigns. The vortexes generated at the wind turbines wing tips can create high roll rates that the infrared sensors can cope with easily.
E-mail me when people leave their comments –
Follow

You need to be a member of diydrones to add comments!

Join diydrones

Comments

  • Moderator
    Gary Mortimer September 18, 2010 at 12:22am
    Go and see Dean then buy us all a beer, but if you don't think it would work I would get the thermopile one out. But lets not pull this too far from thrust of it. (Which was my fault) Its a fantastic real world use of an sUAS. We don't see much of that.
  • A.J. Kochevar September 17, 2010 at 6:34pm
    Show me an IMU implimentation that could have flown this airplane and Ill buy you a beer. I know ATTO is getting close, but these conditions would put any filter to its breaking point.
  • David Conger September 17, 2010 at 3:18pm
    That's awesome. Open Source Micro UAV doing real work. Very cool.
  • Moderator
    Gary Mortimer September 17, 2010 at 2:42pm
    I'm on the IMU plan as well but I can get an awful lot done with my thermopile Attos. Many ways to skin a cat, although I've never really understood that phrase.
  • Developer
    Ryan Beall September 17, 2010 at 2:22pm
    only because their IMU code/hardware is inadequate! ;) just kidding I'm only on the IMU train because all the cool kids are doing it~!
  • Moderator
    Gary Mortimer September 17, 2010 at 1:34pm
    Oh look another vote for thermopiles ;-)
This reply was deleted.